A few days ago I read a comment posted at a popular website where Brazilians discuss a variety of topics and issues. The subject of the topic was creating unity between specifically Afro-Brazilians and Afro-Latinos in general with African-Americans. I found the topic interesting because that is the object of this website. The fourth comment in the forum was written by an Afro-Brazilian who had lived for two years in the United States in New York. The writer explained that while he live in the United States, he tried to connect with African-Americans but he lamented that African-Americans always rejected him as a foreigner and told him that he wasn’t black. This question of blackness is a topic that I have written about previously on this website. For many African-Americans who never learned that slavery existed throughout the Americas, a person isn’t black if a person doesn’t speak “black” English, or doesn’t walk, talk or behave in certain ways attributed to African-Americans culture. The issue of blackness becomes even more complex when obviously black Latinos don’t define themselves as blacks. This is an issue that must be addressed before there can ever be an type of unity of blacks throughout the Americas.

Although this is not a topic that will be resolved with one comment on a blog, I believe it is necessary to inform my readers that there are many blacks living in the United States that were born in Latin America or the Caribbean or have parents that were born in Latin America or the Caribbean. So many of these people have the appearance of a typical African-American that people probably don’t realize that they are members of the African Diasporic family that have origins in other countries of the Americas. As I written previously, African slaves were sent to several countries in the Americas. And because countries in North America, South America, Central America and the Caribbean are part of the Americas, in this sense, these people are also “Americans”. Today, I have included the photos of several black celebrities that many people probably don’t realize have roots in other countries of the Americas. Although all of these people gained fame in the United States, all of them were also either born outside of the United States or have parents that were born outside of the United States.